Love in a Hopeless Place
by Mrs.Heavensbee
Summary: Aly has been keeping herself from her feelings ever since the zombie apocalypse started. She swore never care about anything or anyone to avoid being hurt. But after meeting a group of survivors, everything begins to change. Daryl D./OC


**Disclaimer: I own nothing or no one, just Aly.**

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><p>Aly scrambled through the woods with only her shirt off. The weeks of not eating and running through a large city left her tired and weak. Walkers invaded the city and roads so Aly had to make sure she wasn't easily detected. She had no weapons. Just her fists, legs and her quick thinking but in the fact that she was starving, and this made her lose those qualities. The sun made everything ten times worse and the shadows of the trees of the forest didn't seem to help at all. Maybe only a couple degrees cooler from 100.<p>

Sweat beaded down Aly's face and body. Her torn jeans had become damp from sweat which made them very uncomfterable to run in. But it was so much better than being eaten by walkers. Aly slowed down to a stop and turned around. She had been swarmed by walkers from the city and the only escape was running into trees and thorny bushes, giving Aly the cuts across her cheeks and arms. The sun made her take off her shirt while she ran but dropped it without noticing. Who was there to care if she came out of the forest with no shirt on? Everyone she knew was dead. Aly even debated with herself whether to blow her brains out or not.

Aly panted and leaned against a tree. "Fuck..." she looked around, only now noticing she was lost in the middle of nowhere. She didn't even know what state she was in. Aly had came from North Carolina and every place she stopped at was like a ghost town. She pulled her long, messy brown hair back and slid down the tree and caught a glimer of light flash in her eyes. There was a clearing close by. Some type of vehical made a shine like that. Hope drifted back into her head as she walked closer to the clearing.

"Hello?" Aly called once she came out of the forest. There were a few vans and trucks around. There were a few tents around as well set up close by each other. "Hello?" Aly asked a little louder. Again there was silence. "Why do I even try?" Aly sighed and turned to the left and saw a burnt out fire with lawn chairs all around it. But there, sitting on a plate on a lawn chair, was a big ass peanut butter and jelly sandwitch.

Aly couldn't believe her eyes. It looked fresh and just made. She ran over to the chair and dropped to her knees and picked it up to made sure the bread wasn't hard, which it wasn't, and took a huge bite from the corner. Aly smiled and moaned like she was having an orgasm in her mouth. People were here! Everything tasted to fresh! This had to be the first thing she had eaten in about two or three weeks. She had lived off of what Bear Grylls did on Man v.s. Wild which had saved her life a few times.

Aly was about to take the last bite until she got whamed on the shoulder by a baseball bat.

"Bitch, get the fuck off my sandwitch!" a male voice yelled, holding the bat like he was ready to swing again. Aly turned on her back and moved backwards.

"I'm sorry! I haven't eaten in days and I thought nobody was here!" she said looking up at the man. The man was defidently tall and looked like a redneck. Actually, he looked more like a wrestler type. He had very short hair and large muscles. The only thing that didn't look as mean was his blue eyes. The man lowered his bat and smirked down at the new arrival. Aly could tell this wasn't the type of man she felt comfterble around, the way he looked at her, his eyes hungry for what Aly had exposing.

"Now, what is a sexy lil' doll doing in a shit hole like this?" he kneeled down and ran his fingers down Aly's cheek. Aly tossed her head in the other direction and stood up.

"Getting away from dead geeks and people like you." Aly spat. It dawned on her that she absoluty could not trust this man. She turned on her heel to walk away when the man caught her arm.

"Where in the 'ell do you think you're goin'?" he growled and pulled her back in front of him to get a better view of her shirtless figure. "Don't you wanna hang around and have a little fun?"

"Merle! Leave her alone!" A tall, skinny woman walked up from a hill with her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Merle took a small step back from Aly. New relief spread over her when he did. Merle slowly walked toward the tall woman, glaring at her as he passed her and went down the hill the way she came. The woman looked back at Aly.

"Sorry about him. He can be a dick sometimes." she said.

"How many are you?" Aly couldn't help but ask.

"A good few. We're all down by the lake washing up. It looks like you need one too." she said then gave her a friendly smile.

"I'm Lori, Lori Grimes." she said. Aly crossed her arms over her chest and looked around for a few seconds, before looking back at Lori.

"Aly Winters."

"Well, nice to meet you, Aly. Come on, let's get you washed up." Lori smiled and started to walk downhill. Aly hesitated. She had rules about getting attatched to someone. Let alone the man Merle kept flirting with her. If Lori hadn't came when she did, Aly was scared Merle probably would have raped her. Aly sighed and followed Lori down to a lake lake with boulders and mountain rocks surrounding it. The water looked clear and beautiful from the sun shining off the ripples other people were making. Aly's eyes grew wide, happy there was a large amount of people still alive. And there were kids! Young kids around seven and ten. Aly was only twenty one, but she loved kids. Lori brought her down to the group.

"We have another surviver joining us. Her name is Aly Winters." Lori said. Aly felt like she was the new kindergarden kid in school where everyone would say hello to her at the same time, in other words, it was awkward for her.

"Hey." Aly gave a small wave as Lori strolled over from what looked like to be the place everyone did their laundrey. She handed Ashlyn an over sized, gray tank top.

"These should fit you. They're Daryl's but he's out hunting for the group. I'm sure he wouldn't mind letting you borrow some of his clothes for a while until we get to another location with shops."

Aly greatfully took the clothes from Lori and unfolded them to find a bar of soap.

"Go wash up lady." Lori added with a smile.

Since there were little kids in the lake, Aly stepped into the cool water with her clothes on. She could change into the other man's clothes and wait for hers to dry again. The water felt so cold on Aly's skin, seeing as that she had been running around the city without her shirt on and it was almost a hundred degrees outside. Once the water was up to her waist, she dove in. Aly smiled and swam back up to the surface, flipping her long brown hair as she did then paused to feel the water run down her face and run through her fingers as she swam to keep herself afloat. She took the bar of soap and ran it along her arms first, then her face, then the rest of her body.

Aly spent an hour in the lake before finally coming out with prunes on her fingers. Finally clean from fresh water. She twisted her hair to get the water out then grabbed a towel to dry herself off with. The sun was already starting to set and the temperature became cooler. Lori stayed near the lake while the group headed back to camp to make the fire.

"So where did you come from?" Lori asked, her arms crossed as she strolled towards her.

"I'm from Atlanta, Georgia." Aly replied, walking behind a tree to change out of her wet clothes.

"So is Daryl." Lori said and turned around. "I'd stay away from the Dixon's if I were you. They're nothing but trouble. Merle, that guy you saw when you came, that's Daryl's brother."

"Which one is worse?" Aly asked, tossing her wet clothes on a rock.

"Merle. He's one of those people who would end up in jail for rape or murder." Lori replied.

"Then why do you have him around? Why not just kill him? People like that don't deserve to live anyways." Aly and drying off once more.

"Because he just looks like a bad ass. He can help us if we ever get swarmed by walkers." Lori replied again.

"Don't judge a book by it's cover. I'm sure you've heard that a lot." Aly said, slipping Daryl's dry clothes on. "And you're letting me wear his brother's clothes." she smirked and shook her head then came back out from behind the tree. Lori turned around, smirking.

"Well so far you seem just fine."

Aly smirked. "I have my demons. But still, looks can be decieving." Aly said. Lori led Aly back to camp. The group sat around a small fire, a kettle of water was bubbling over it and something that looked like to be squirrel was popping as well.

"Squirrel for dinner?" Aly asked, sitting criss cross next to a kid that looked to be Korean, Glen as she found out earlier.

"Squirrel for breakfast, lunch and dinner." Merle said. "Do you have permission from my brother to wear his clothes?" Merle asked, raising his voice.

"Merle, stop. Your brother has more clothes to chose from." Lori glared at him.

"I hope Daryl comes back soon. We're running out. And we have another mouth to feed." Merle sighed. "I'm gonna need to pack up the rest we have. Some of us are planning to go to the city to pick up somemore supplies." Merle added.

Aly would have debated about why he would go back when it seemed they had everything with them already, but kept her mouth shut.

"So Aly," Lori cut some pieces of squirrel on a plate and handed them around the group. "What's your story? How'd you come to find us?"

Aly poked the cooked animal part with her fork then sighed. "My step dad got bit by a zombie first. He didn't tell my mom. I fell asleep one night, woke up the next morning to find my mother's room all bloody and what not. So I packed and ran away. I went to my friend's house to see if she was okay. She was my best friend, we've known each other since we were in diapers. Her name was Kayla. I found out she had been bitten..." Aly looked at the fire, or at least tried. The group noticed her eyes becoming glossy with tears. "She...had gotten bit a few hours before I got to her. I didn't want to leave her like that. So I held her for a while, until..." Aly choked. Lori shook her head quickly. "You don't have to say, Aly. What did you do after?" she asked. Aly wiped away a tear then continued. "So umm, I left. There were walkers everywhere. I got swarmed and the only way I had was to go into the trees. So that's what I did. I ran for miles and ended up here." Aly finished and shoved her meal into her mouth to keep herself occupied on chewing than crying.

The fire had died down to small embers. Aly stood from the group when Merle grasped her hand. "Why don't you stay with me in my tent, sweetheart?" he smirked, standing up beside her. Aly pushed him away.

"Over my dead body." she growled and yanked her hand away.

"Then it might just come to that." Merle smirked.

"Merle, if you even try to do that one more time, I'm going to handcuff you to a tree for the night!" Lori said then looked at Aly. "Hmm, I don't have an extra mat for you. But you can probably stay with Andrea tonight." Lori looked at a tall, blonde woman who looked like she was in her late thirties.

"I won't mind." Andrea nodded and brought Aly over to her tent. Aly looked back at Merle and glared at him, then zipped the tent up for the night.


End file.
